From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2015 10:03:46 +0000

Gosh, I wish this was true.  I wish that we were all just one big
happy family striving to promote scholarship.  But I don’t think we
are.  We all have different priorities and drivers and sometimes those
drivers and priorities clash.  That’s not necessarily anybody’s
‘fault' - it is just the way the system works.  But the notion that an
academic wanting to publish in a high impact journal, a librarian
worried about the cost of that journal, and the shareholder of a
commercial publisher wanting to see the profits of that journal
maximised all share a common ethos is, to me at least, wishful
thinking.

David

On 10 Jul 2015, at 01:57, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: Robert Glushko <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2015 14:44:35 +0000
>
> I totally take your 'take a swing comment' in the humorous spirit in
> which I believe it was intended, but it does on some level make me a
> bit sad.
>
> I'd like to think that nearly all of us are doing what we do because
> we love the academy, we love scholarship, and on some level we want to
> make the world a better place.  I hope that when we deal with one
> another we can keep in mind that publishers/libraries/scholarly
> societies are close relatives.  And while like all families we can
> duke it out over the dinner table, we are at the end of the day
> family.  There are PLENTY of constituencies out there with whom we
> have deeper disagreements than with each other.  I'm reminded of the
> adage that we often judge ourselves by our intentions and others by
> their actions; perhaps we should bring empathy to the discussion.
>
> I'm hopeful that we can work to find common areas of interest, and
> that we can all work together to promote those areas.  At our best, we
> do so much good.  At our worst, our disagreements seem almost
> sectarian.  If there are any fellow travelers on the list who share
> this viewpoint, I'd love to talk.
>
> Best,
>
> Bobby Glushko
> Head, Scholarly Communications and Copyright
> University of Toronto Libraries
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2015 21:51:49 -0400
>
> I don't want to get into the middle of this ongoing dialogue between
> Kevin Smith and Alicia Wise--though I will say that the persistent
> politeness is truly surreal.  Really, guys, take a swing at one
> another. We know you want to!
>
> Kevin, however, makes a remark that seems wrong to me.  I don't mean
> wrong in the sense of factually incorrect, but wrong in the sense that
> when we look at all those arrows pointing to the future, which one is
> likely to emerge as the winner? The tragic thing about this game is
> that we will all be long gone ourselves before the results come in.
> So we are prophets without a prayer.  This is not as bad as it sounds,
> inasmuch as, paraphrasing Bob Dole's comment about the Vice
> Presidency, it's an indoor job and requires no heavy lifting.
>
> It's the remark about subscriptions that just doesn't seem right to
> me.  Everywhere you look in media businesses today, subscriptions are
> surging.  The subscriptions can be HBO, Netflix, Oyster, Scribd,
> Audible--this list can go on until it tries the patience of our
> esteemed moderator.  Meanwhile, even in the tiny little patch of
> scholarly communications, the revenue earned from subscriptions
> continues to rise year over year.  The growth may not be what was once
> promised to Wall Street a decade ago, but there is no evidence that
> the economic model or the organizations that are built upon that model
> are fading into irrelevance. Indeed, one of the more intriguing
> projects I have been involved with the past year applies the
> subscription model to a variant of Gold open access.  PeerJ's
> membership model is yet another flavor of this model.
>
> It doesn't matter if Kevin or Alicia or anyone else agrees with me or
> not. All this happens independently of ourselves. The economy is
> impersonal, human agency is overrated. But it is fun to go to the
> track and bet on the horses.  Here's $2 on the subscription model to
> win, and another $2 for Gold OA to place.  Green OA, alas, ends up
> outside the money.
>
> Joe Esposito
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 7, 2015 at 9:05 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> From: Kevin Smith <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2015 12:07:36 +0000
>>
>> Dear Alicia,
>>
>> Thank you for the additional information.  The reason I think this is
>> one factor among several that make Elsevier's new policy more complex
>> and probably unworkable is that these differing embargo lists mean
>> that repository managers will need to determine the nationality of all
>> authors on any given paper and then consult the correct embargo list.
>> Since this applies at the article level, U.S. repositories will
>> undoubtedly need to apply both lists in determining appropriate
>> embargoes for any paper authored by scholars from both countries.  It
>> even raises the question of who is a U.K. author; is it a U.K. citizen
>> (regardless of where they work), someone who lives in the U.K.
>> (regardless of nationality or place of employment), a person employed
>> by a U.K. institution, or a researcher who is funded by a U.K. body?
>>
>> We also must agree to disagree, I think, about the continuing role of
>> the subscription model.  In my opinion, one of the most urgent tasks
>> for libraries is to find ways to transition their collection funds
>> from supporting the consumption of scholarship (through subscriptions)
>> to supporting its production (where the result will usually be some
>> type of open access).  Many libraries are working on this transition as I write.
>> Subscription business models were an appropriate response to the
>> limitations of print technology, but they are rapidly becoming
>> unnecessary and even counterproductive, since by their nature they
>> disable the most innovative features of the new environment for
>> scholarship.  It seems likely, to me, that subscriptions per se will
>> have only a minor role in library collecting in the future, and
>> expensive subscription conglomerates like Elsevier probably none.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Kevin
>>
>> Kevin L. Smith, M.L.S., J.D.
>> Director of Copyright and Scholarly Communications Duke University
>> Libraries [log in to unmask]